Ballard School Blog- from nursery to GCSE in New Milton, Hampshire.

Battlefields Day 2

September 19, 2014

To Ypres and the Flanders Field museum in the magnificent Cloth Hall first thing, to gain a deeper understanding of the futile battles around the Ypres area and some general background to the war. The horrifying statistics of war were brought to life in the images and interactive displays. We then had a stop at the Field Hospital cemetery and the bunkhouse where John McCrae wrote “In Flanders Fields” which Ben read beautifully for us.

We continued on to the austere but equally poignant German cemetery at Langermarck, 40,000 soldiers are buried there, many in a single mass grave. Tyne Cot was next; the largest Commonwealth cemetery where many soldiers from Britain and all over the world lie together, mainly commemorating the dead of Paschendael.

We returned to Ypres for a tasty dinner in a local restaurant, and then hurried up to the Menin Gate where Mrs Norris had worked her charm on the organiser to get us a space reserved at the front for the ceremony. As dusk fell the buglers played the last post; three of our students joined the laying of the wreaths and left a message from Ballard School in memory of the war dead. It was a moving moment and a time to reflect on all the sights that we had seen today.